Where Has President Trump’s "Art of the Deal" Gone?
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Everyone negotiates, but some negotiations are more visible than others, and many highly public bargaining sessions or diplomatic exchanges provide an education into what to do to be effective in negotiations. One need only look to President Trump for examples – of what not to do.
President Trump’s batting average is zero. Consider the opportunities he has had since taking office:
Talks with North Korea over denuclearization
Détente with Mexico over trade, immigration, and funding a border wall
Diplomacy with China over trade and tariffs
Working with Congress over the budget, the Affordable Care Act, and other needed legislation
In these and almost every significant negotiation in which he has been directly or indirectly involved, he’s struck out at the plate. It doesn’t matter whether his negotiation style is “win-lose” or “win-win” in modern negotiation parlance, it has produced no major wins of any kind.
Despite touting his negotiation skills in print and conversation for years, despite his professed acumen in the real estate market, and despite his debatable success in business (given the six Trump-related business bankruptcies and amassing the largest cumulative financial losses incurred by one person in U.S. history), Mr. Trump leaves a lot to be desired with the political arena.
My friend and colleague Dick Hurford, whose opinions I value highly even if I don’t always agree, have differing opinions. His post – “So Many Negotiations and the ‘Art of the Deal’ – Lessons to Be Learned?” – asks whether the negotiation styles of the President and, by extension, his Administration are effective, successful, and embrace core negotiation principles. Dick cites certain negotiation precepts Trump includes in his forth in his 1987 book, The Art of the Deal. To frame the discussion, I’ll quote excerpts from that book, too.
Let’s set the stage. In Chapter 1, Trump offers insight into how he conducts business:
“Deals are my art form…. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That’s how I get my kicks.”
“Most people are surprised by the way I work. I play it very loose…. I try not to schedule too many meetings…. I prefer to come to work each day and just see what develops.”
“I have at least a dozen meetings [in a day]. The majority occur on the spur of the moment, and few of them last longer than fifteen minutes.”
“I understand that getting press can be very helpful in making deals, and I don’t mind talking about them [in the press].”
So that’s the picture of Trump, the businessman. Let’s look at Trump, the negotiator. In Chapter 2, he makes several observations about negotiation:
“My style of deal-making is quite simple and straightforward. I aim very high, and then I just keep pushing and pushing and pushing to get what I am after.”
“More than anything else, I think deal-making is an ability you’re born with. It’s in the genes. I don’t say that egotistically. It’s not about being brilliant. It does take a certain intelligence, but mostly it’s about instincts.”
“Most people who have the instincts will never recognize that they do, because they don’t have the courage or the good fortune to discover their potential.”
In my world, where I regularly oversee and provide counsel on negotiations, Trump’s words cause me to ask various questions about the efficacy of negotiation style:
Is he really an artist when it comes to making deals?
Does Trump follow the cardinal rules of preparing and planning for negotiation?
Does he have the patience for protracted negotiations?
Has he succeeded in getting press that has been very helpful to him in making deals?
Is aiming very high in deal-making always a good strategy?
What are the risks of aiming too high?
At what point in a negotiation should bargainers become more realistic?
Is deal-making mostly about instincts?
From my perspective, the answer to the last question is a resounding yes, so I agree with Mr. Trump on the critical importance of instincts in negotiation. To me, the term “instinct” loosely embraces several variations of the same concept, i.e., intuition, hunch, gut feeling, inner voice, sixth sense, and so forth.
According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, “instinct” is the innate aspect of behavior not guided by reason but by reflex action (indeed a Trump trait) and a powerful impulse. Slightly different but similar, “intuition” is defined as knowing something without the use of rational processes, immediate cognition without activating reason. Thus, intuition is based on prior knowledge acquired under similar circumstances, whereas instinct is based on impulsive reflex action. In both behaviors, reason does not enter into the equation.
Perhaps if President Trump tempered his negotiation instincts with reason, he could appreciate what strategy isn’t working and why, and then adapt his deal-making by considering some concessions. As former President John F. Kennedy said in his book Profiles in Courage:
“Some demonstrated courage through their unyielding devotion to absolute principle. Others demonstrated courage through their acceptance of compromise, through their advocacy of conciliation, through their willingness to replace conflict with cooperation.”
For a different view, I encourage you to read Dick Hurford’s counterpoint in which he, too, looks to Chapter 2 of The Art of the Deal to examine three Trump negotiation philosophies: “Get the Word Out,” “Deliver the Goods,” and “Have Fun.”